The following is a post grabbed from ls1.com... i have no idea if this is for real or not, but it sounds good to me.... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- posted October 09, 1999 09:53 AM @ www.LS1.com I'd like to personally Thank, Collin MacDonald for writing and sharing his expertise, in the following document. My main interest, besides my passion for showing cars, is in photography. I have worked as a professional and still do a lot of photography. I studied under the New England School of Photography during the 1970's when you had to learn about the science of light and the properties of color. Long before the "automated" cameras of today of point and shoot. The days when understanding light mattered. Using the manual processes of photography gave me an in depth knowledge of light properties, color refraction and reflection. I would like to share some of my knowledge to explain why Zaino polishes are the best for enhancing the optical properties of a paint finish. Since I own a 1996 Camaro Z28 SS, bright red, a 1996 Corvette Collector Edition in silver, and finally a 1996 Impala SS in black, I cover the many different hues of color shades of light, medium and dark colors. Before we begin we must understand what light is. Light: In a strict sense, the region of the electromagnetic spectrum that can be perceived by human vision, i.e., the visible spectrum, which is approximately the wavelength range of 0.4 m to 0.7 m. The region embraced by the term light has not been clearly defined, but by convention and usage, is considered to extend from the near-ultraviolet region of approximately 0.3 m, through the visible region, and into the mid-infrared region to approximately 30 m. Now we have got to understand what color is. Color has three basic properties - hue, brightness, and saturation. Their relationship to each other can only be viewed accurately in three dimension of the color spectrum. Hue changes along a perimeter of the spectrum where a piece of the color space is missing so we can see how saturation changes from gray in the middle to full saturation on the exterior to black and how brightness changes from white at the top to black at the bottom. The color space in a spectrum is wider at the top due to the fact that we can see a much wider range of bright hues than dark hues. Each color reaches its maximum saturation point at a different level of brightness. For example if we image lime green reaches a maximum saturation only when it is very bright and at blue is saturated at a much darker level in the color space. Some terms that I thought might be helpful to understand what color is all about and the way your car shines: Intensity: Measure of the flow of power emitted by a surface. Intensity is expressed in watts (W) per square meter. In other words, how much light is concentrated in an area? If two bulbs are reflecting onto the same surface with one burning at 100 W and another at 60 W, there is more intensity from the 100 W bulb because more energy is being transferred to the same area. Brightness: The attribute of a visual sensation according to which an area appears to emit more or less light. Hue or Spectrum: The attribute of a visual sensation according to which an area appears to be similar to one of the perceived colors red, yellow, green and blue, or a combination of two of them. Obviously there are more colors in the world than simply red, green, yellow and blue. Hue is used to describe how a color is related to the primary colors it is made up of. Saturation: The colorfulness of an area judged in proportion to its brightness. An area that is twice as bright as a second area must have twice as much hue to have the same saturation. Colorfulness: Attribute of a visual sensation according to which an area appears to exhibit more or less of its hue. Colorfulness is simply how much of a certain color is in an area. Primary Colors: Colors that cannot be produced from other colors. These colors are Red, Blue and Green (RGB) and can be combined to make up any other color (aside from another primary). Other colors can be used as primaries but they will not be able to make up the entire spectrum of color. Only RGB can be combined to represent the whole spectrum. Now some basics that we need to know to understand what Zaino Polish does when we put it on a painted surface. When light strikes a surface, it can do two things. It can be reflected, called specular reflection, or it can penetrate the surface. In the latter case, the light will be refracted due to the change in the refractive index. When we look at an object, the color we see is due to reflected light. Only a few of the light waves that hit any type of surface are reflected back. The combination and intensity of different light waves reflecting off a surface are what give the surface its color. Normal white light that is emitted from most light bulbs and from the Sun contains 100% of all three primary colors (see definition of primary colors). White is not actually a color, rather it is the presence of all colors. An object's color is determined by the type and amount of light it absorbs. Because the reflected light from an object is the light that is not absorbed by the object, an object's color is the opposite of the absorbed light. Putting this into an explanation of what Zaino polish does to the color surfaces of cars is it adheres to the painted surface of the car so the light on the painted surface is absorbed by dark surfaces and reflects off light on light surfaces. Color is merely the rate at which light is absorbed or reflected by an object. Dark color absorbs more light, while light colors reflects more light. Zaino polish reacts with the painted surface by enhances the true deep color of the painted surface. So if you notice darker color cars have a much deeper color enhancement then lighter color cars. What actually happens is the dark paint absorbs the existing light bringing out that deep depth color you see on dark painted surfaces. The paint traps much more of the light by absorption, thus giving you the illusion of a high refined deep shine. A medium base color like red, medium blue, medium green, reside in the center of the color spectrum band. These medium balanced colors contain the light absorbing and reflecting properties that equally absorb and/or reflects light. This provides much less of the reflective value then a black or deep blue. Again you must look at the reflective and absorption properties of the actual color. Finally silver, whites, grays resides on the far end of the Gray Scale. Silver is considered to be of the Black/White family rather then part of the color spectrum of red, green, and blue. So you must judge this color by Gray Scale. What you will see is the silver has very little absorption of color, so you don't get that high reflection you find in dark colors, but you do get a high reflection of light which is caused by the color not absorbing light by reflecting it. Thus silver, gold, yellow, whites all have a reflective value the become quite apparent during times like cloudy days and twilight hours. You will see the deep reflective values of the lighter colors show much more depth. This is cause by the color absorbing much of the available light as possible giving it much more depth. Zaino polishes enhances the base color of any car because of the purity or clarity of the Zaino polish. This allows the true color of the car to show itself through Very light conditions without blocking or filtering layers between the paint and the light. Simply put, unlike other polishes or waxes, Zaino has used what I described to you above as the foundation to develop a new type of product that protects and enhances the paint surface. This results in a very shiny car showing the true color and depth of the painted surface. Of course you must remember the painted surface must be free of other waxes, polishes or contaminants like acid rain, oxidation, tree sap etc. that would dull the finish. This is the reason you should clay the car before applying the base coat (Z-1). I hope this explains to you why Zaino polishes give a clean, deep, optically perfect, "wet-looking" finish to your car. Collin MacDonald